So I've been wondering if anyone else out there uses the movi as a timelapse pan and tilt head? I've used it a couple of times. Works well with the pan. However the tilt is a little fast.. Here is a test I shot with the M15 a while back. As you can see towards the end I switched the tilt on and it moved way quicker then the pan. Maybe it wasn't perfectly balanced.. or Maybe I need to dial down the throttle a little. I'll do some more tests.. The Pan was set to 3 clicks and it took about 20 min to pan about 90 degrees. Anyways wondering if anyone else has messed around with this. Sorry, not the best of my timelapse videos, I just shot it for this post from my porch.
Very cool. In the past I was thinking about using it to stabilize some long exposure timelapses from a boat, but I never got around to setting it up. It would be cool if it worked, but who knows if it would.
Not sure how a boat would be... You should try it out and upload it. I think if the boat were still there can be a lot of side to side and up and down shake when played back fast.. But maybe if your slowly moving forward like a hyper-lapse or something..
The shot I had envisioned was with landscape in the foreground, and properly exposed stars in the night sky. Star trails would be evident, depending on shutter speed, but I think it would look cool. I'm the sort that likes to drag my shutter on timelapses anyway. I can't stand timelapses that lack motion blur on moving objects. The waters would still have to be relatively calm, and the boat moving slowly, in order to achieve the effect I have in mind. You may have to cheat the ISO higher than normal, and the shutter speed down a little. I want to try it on one of the large ferries we have here in the Puget Sound (just hopped off one of those a couple hours ago, as a matter of fact), but getting permission would make things a little difficult.
Just did a 2nd test! Vimeo disputed the video for the music.. I just slapped a song from Final Cut x in there from the apple loop library.. So I disputed it and its under review.. UGH! Hopefully it doesn't get taken off. Anyways here is the video! I might try another one tomorrow
Sometimes I live by its easier to ask for forgiveness then permission.. lol Every Time I ask for permission I get a bunch of confused people, and they direct me to their boss, then their boss directs me to their boss and so on until I just hit a dead end, or run out of time when I could have just shot it and left.. haha Thats not always the case but happens a lot.
Writing as a lapsed sailplane pllot, that's great footage of so-called orographic cloud -- the cloud that is just hanging above the peaks and lying across the wind -- the near edge has rising air and is forming the cloud, and the far edge has descending air and the cloud is dissolving. Oh....and yeah, nice time lapse! Andy.
Thanks! Those Mountains are in my back yard and every time I do a time-lapse its something new and unique like a finger print. Love it. Thanks again! I learned a new term! Orographic cloud!
In your back yard? Wow. You need to spend more time working on that lawn, dude. Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orographic_lift and the first image -- now imagine what was further downwind behind those hills! Andy.
It was stormy, My in laws live on that side of the mountain.. and by my back yard I mean a 10 min drive from my house..
I uploaded it to youtube because vimeo is stupid and kept saying i was in copyright infringement for using a build in apple loops song.. ugh..
Also does anyone know if you can make the remote stay one? The spectrum remote. Because when doing a timelapse it gets old when it beeps every 10 min or whatever it is. I would like to turn that feature off and just make it stay on until its dead
Short answer: you can't. You can, however increase the time to 60 minutes. This requires a firmware update available through the Spektrum website. I asked them about it, but was instead advised to unplug the battery or buy one of their cases (I had initially complained of the remote turning itself on in transit). If it's an issue of the remote needing to stay on during a long shot like this, I would say that you should just adjust an arbitrary setting before the inactivity alarm goes off. Something like adjusting the roll (as long as you don't have the roll enabled) should do the trick.
So I did a hyper-lapse test with the M15 today.. It came out better then doing it the standard tripod way. However, I ran into some issues.. I did a 120 picture hyper-lapse where I put the M15 on a Mole roller baby stand. First problem was the MoVI would rock in the cradle on the stand. Easy fix I taped it so it wouldn't slide or swing slightly. Because when doing long exposures that can blur everything. 2nd problem: I was super excited to use the MoVI as a hyper lapse device. Because in theory once it is in remote mode you can move the movi whichever way and it should always point the same direction. Well anyone who has done hyper lapses can tell you they are time consuming because you have to move the tripod, bubble the head, line the shot up take the picture and repeat. Well with the movi, you shouldn't have to buble the head, shouldn't have to line the shot up. Which shaves secs off each picture and hours off the whole timelapse. Well my problem I ran into was I picked a far away object. The mountains, and lined up the framing. Well about 1/4 into the shooting I noticed it was drifting to the right. So I used trim to fix this. You can see in the clip below how it would swing left to right. Well I did another test and it drifted the other direction. So I originally thought maybe I pointed the camera north and as I moved forward the mountains between me and north moved more south and thats what came across looking like drift. But on my 2nd test it drifted again but the other direction. Now these are slow slow drifting that only a timelapse with 15 sec intervals while rolling a stand would pick up. However I just thought I would post my findings on here. Maybe someone from freefly can write in and let me know if there is a more precise way to lock the camera pointing in a direction? Anyways here is the video test:
Hi Trevor I didn't think I would be on my own hence coming here to search. I am trying to do exactly the same thing with my M5 and have the same problem. There is a pan drift that I wasn't aware of until trying time-lapse. I believe actually it is not an insignificant problem. Even doing conventional work say walking up a very long corridor there would be a noticeable pan drift. Not a problem for many I am sure but for critical composition such as a one point perspective, as an architectural photographer it would be a fix that needed attention. But for time-lapse or hyper lapse which I am experimenting with it also, certainly this is a problem which I am hoping there is an answer to? Is there any fine tuning that can be applied?
I usually can correct it by using the trim however we are talking about a drifting that is so slow it takes 15 min to realize its drifting. So by the time you do a click or two to make up for the drift you might as well start over with the timelapse.
So I just did a stay at home test. I thought the movment of the stand rolling from each location caused it to drift. so I started the movi at home lined it up and left it on until the remote buzzed and then went and checked it out and it moved about 30 degrees right. So I panned it around to a different area and restarted it and it panned 30 degrees right again.. Its balanced really well and its just a little DSLR on a M15.. But could it be a balance issue? Does everyones pan right?
So i just ran a test on my m15 holding a DSLR. Using the trim buttons I trimmed in left pan to counter balance the right pan. However its not that easy as one would think. So I tried one click and it did nothing, two clicks nothing, then three clicks slowed it down and 4 clicks then it moves the other way.. So I got it to just about stay put with 4 clicks and move the throttle all the way down and move it up just before the first line on the left of the joy stick.. So like move it a hair up from all the way down. I am posting this so maybe others can see if theirs is the exact same setting. Because it could be a firmware issue. Because tilt is perfectly fine on my M15. It has stayed put in all the positions I stick it in.
I'm using the M5 but the problem is the same, though it maybe drifting a bit quicker, and yes it goes to the right. After a couple of minutes the drift is noticeable though nothing like 30 degrees.